Ukraine

Baroness Neville-Jones Excerpts

Friday 31st October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Jones (Con)]

My Lords, first, I thank the Minister for his speech. He laid out what is at stake for us and what this country is doing in the contribution that we are making, which is considerable. If I might say so, I would very much like the wider public to be more aware of exactly what the UK is doing. This is a communications job, which could well be done, and that would strengthen the already solid position in this country. It would also inform our allies, which need to know what each of us is doing.

The Minister rightly said that Ukraine’s security is ours too. I want to comment briefly on some of the wider aspects of the situation in Ukraine. Putin is so tied now to the position he has taken that he cannot back off the war without claiming a success in the land taken, which in his mind means that he has to have more than what Russia currently holds. Conversely, President Zelensky is not free to give away bits of Ukraine to Russia. Indeed, a political crisis would threaten in Ukraine if he tried to do that. His strength lies in the political support in the country to fight for it; his weakness is a lack of reliable finance to continue fighting, a lack of long-range weapons to penetrate much further into Russia, and ultimately—a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat—a much smaller population to bear arms, which in the end will count. Time is frankly not on our side, although there is some.

Since the meeting in Alaska, I think that President Trump has realised that Putin has been playing him along, and his reaction has been quite vigorous. He has cancelled talks and increased sanctions on Russia, which is important. He has moderated his peace ambitions to stopping the fighting along the battlelines rather than suggesting that Zelensky should be prepared to give up land not lost in battle. But he has not allowed Ukrainians to have the weapons that they are asking for—nor do I think he will. There seems to be a consistency here with the policy of the Biden Administration, which refused to let Ukraine have escalation capability in relation to Russia. This is perhaps where some of the anxieties begin.

During his state visit, President Trump said that Europeans were much closer to the front line than the US, the implication being that, while Europeans needed to get on and build our defences, about which he is quite right, somehow the US had less at risk and was less implicated. That is dangerous territory for the NATO alliance, as it suggests that the US is not so affected by Russian military activity. There is an important task here to close the perception gap. In particular, we need a joint and forceful response to other things that the Russians are doing, particularly their increasing incursions into NATO airspace and waters. Failure to respond will encourage the Russians to go further. Let us not forget the consequences of having failed to react to Russia’s activities in Crimea and its invasion there. That was a failure of deterrence, and we risk further such failures if we do not vigorously show that we are not going to put up with what the Russians are doing. Failure to respond saps the alliance and will also, in the end, reduce our capacity to deal with the Russian threat.

It is worrying against that background that, at a time when we need to bolster our capabilities, we cannot decide our priorities, and we are unable to decide that using part of the sanctioned Russian financial assets to pay for increased Ukrainian capability is more justified and important than preserving them inviolate in the vault. While the allies dither, the Russians gain political ground. We must stop them.